Free Into the Abyss by Stefanie Gaither Page A

woman, who I recognize, though I don’t know her name. Her eyes are cold, her hair pulled back in a tight, severe-looking bun. Both she and my escort stand like sentinels on either side of the president.
    I am not surprised they’re staying. Now that I think about it, I don’t know that I have ever had a conversation with the president alone.
    I feel that scowl from before threatening again. Not even she—a woman who I have never seen show anything like trepidation—can brave the sight of me on her own.
    Can that be true?
    I want those other two to leave, suddenly. I want to be alone with the president, and I want her to tell me, and only me, all the things that I deserve to know. Why am I here? Why am I the only one? And is there a way to bring back the Violet I was before—all eighteen combined years of her?
    There is so much I should know that I don’t.
    â€œYou look like you have a lot on your mind,” President Cross says.
    â€œA lot has happened tonight.”
    She nods, and takes a seat in one of the tall leather chairs around the table. “Come sit,” she says, gesturing to the chair beside her. I would rather stand, and normally I would, but I decide to simply go along with whatever she asks for now. It might make her go along more easily with me when I start asking my own questions.
    â€œA lot has happened tonight,” she repeats, leaning back in her chair as I slide stiffly into mine. “I’m glad to see you escaped all the violence unscathed.”
    â€œI slept through most of it.”
    â€œThough you weren’t in your room the whole time.”
    â€œI went to find Catelyn.”
    â€œI know where you were,” she says thinly. “I have security cameras. Plenty of them, in strategic places—one above the right wing bridge over sector C, for example.”
    Having a conversation with the president is often like playing a game of chess. And this time is no different. I consider every angle of everything I could say next, all the ways it could leave any pieces of me vulnerable to capture and defeat, before I finally say, “I had to pass by there to get to Catelyn’s room.”
    â€œDid you see anything interesting while you were there, by chance?” she asks. And then she just leans back and watches me. Waiting, I assume, for me to move a pawn into the wrong square.
    I am already tired of playing this particular game, though, so I look directly into her challenging gaze, and I say, “You have cameras. You know what I saw.”
    â€œPerhaps. But I am still trying to decide exactly what I saw. The personnel who responded to Emily’s distress call found only you when they reached her. They’re convinced you warned the other clones and allowed them to escape. And they did escape, if you wondered.”
    â€œI didn’t,” I lie.
    â€œAll the same, the security footage was interesting, if inconclusive.”
    â€œAnd what did Emily conclude about what happened?”
    â€œNothing. She claims to have been too shocked to remember the exact details of it all.”
    I try to hold back a derisive snort. “Well, I think I may be suffering the same problem, unfortunately.”
    The president’s guards shift uncertainly at the mocking tone of my voice, but she only smiles at me, and her voice is equal parts steel and ice when she says, “We both know your memory is flawless, Violet. And so you remember, too, who brought you back? It wasn’t Huxley. Just keep that in mind the next time you encounter their clones and you have to decide which side you’re on.”
    â€œI was not on their side,” I say.
    But I know I wasn’t on Emily’s, either.
    Watch your footage again, I want to tell the president. And you’d see me standing in the middle.
    In the middle, and alone. As alone as I was on that day she brought me back. I wonder if she can understand that, somehow—that I